"The facts as I know them now is that he did have possession of the shotgun, he was shot one time, not two, he was shot from a distance and he died at the scene immediately," Welter said.

When Sonia Hernandez, 19, first saw her brother's body 20 minutes after the shooting in the evening of March 6, she could tell parts of his skull were missing from about 20 feet away.

"The mouth was my brother," Hernandez said in an interview. "From the nose up, it was deformed."

Welter was apologetic that officers did not immediately allow her to verify that the body was her brother's, citing investigative procedure. However, he did say officers are entitled to use force to protect themselves and the public.

"We teach our officers to take the best shot," Welter said.

Welter's defense of the officer's actions quickly infuriated the crowd. Audience members holding photos of Hernandez in the back of the room began to shout that he was murdered. Some question police's version of events.

"How do you expect us to control ourselves when we're mad?" said Maria Salazar, who identified herself as a former gang member. "That wasn't necessary. How do you expect people to respect you?"

The crowd gathered in the library at one point chanted, "What do we want?" Justice!" Followed by a slightly quieter, "Whose streets? ... Our streets!"

The meeting was hosted by the Police Department and the Orange County Human Relations Commission so that the chief and other officials and the community could discuss the incident, which occurred after a report of five or six people in an alley with one armed near the 100 block of East Wakefield Avenue. Police found two people in the alley, including one who fled. The chief said the officer told the two people running away to stop, and then Hernandez turned.

Juan Shua Lopez, a friend of Hernandez, was one of many who stepped up to the front of the room to direct anger at Welter and the other police brass standing next to him.

Welter responded with concern and frustration that Lopez viewed his local Police Department in this way. "I'm not happy that you feel like we're terrorizing the neighborhood," he said. "I hear that."

The mother of Hernandez's 2-year-old son, Marla Ochoa Perez, said in an interview that she was studying human services and criminal justice at Cypress College but now wants to be a district attorney and work on Chicano issues.

"I did want to become a police officer, but after this I never want to see myself in a police uniform," Perez said.

The District Attorney's Office and Anaheim police's internal affairs division are investigating the incident.